CAIRO: State security forces arrested 13 students at Ain Shams University affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) on Wednesday after violent clashes between student groups and uniformed and plainclothes security forces during a protest against alleged vote rigging on Monday’s student elections.
Students complain that university officials disqualified candidates not aligned with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), and focused on barring Islamist candidates in particular.
Such tactics are a common feature of the country’s annual student elections, as the government tries to ensure that student unions at the nation’s largest universities do not become a platform for opposition groups.
According to witnesses, roughly 500 students from a range of opposition movements gathered in front of university administrator’s offices to collect signatures against vote rigging and chant slogans.
“We decided that we wanted to have a big demonstration and a sit-in because the government would not let the elections happen freely, Mohamed Soliman, a student at the Faculty of Arts and a member of the MB told Daily News Egypt. “This happens every year. The rules are always broken in student elections in Egypt.
Shortly after gathering, they say they were attacked by uniformed security forces and a crowd of plainclothes agents wielding machetes, Molotov cocktails and clubs.
The Brotherhood’s website claims that 13 students were detained by police, although student protestors say that 14 were detained by university security and nine were later transferred to El Waily police station. At least one man, Amr Sharaf, a photographer with the opposition daily Al Dostour, was hospitalized at Ain Shams University hospital after being beaten by plainclothes officers, who took the memory cards out of his camera.
Student protestors blame the university administration for the violence, and in particular attack its president Ahmed Zaki Badr. He is the son of former Minister of the Interior Zaki Badr, who was the target of an assassination attempt in 1987 for allegedly sanctioning torture in prisons and his fierce campaign against Islamists.
“Ahmed Zaki Badr refused to meet with student protestors, instead he called in these thugs to attack us, he gave them the orders and watched the whole thing, said Soliman.
“He is the president of this university and he is responsible when violence like this happens here, he added.
Protests and clashes have accompanied voting at universities across the country this week, as student union elections are scheduled to take place under the watchful eye of state security.
Opposition groups complain of widespread government interference in student elections, and say that university administrators loyal to the NDP routinely disqualify candidates considered insufficiently loyal to the government.
In Zagazig University alone, in the delta town of Zagazig, the university disqualified more than 500 students from running for office based on their perceived political affiliation.
